


Why Are You Staring?

by GinnyRose



Series: Zuko Omegaverse [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alpha Aang, Alpha Sokka, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Beta Katara, Big Brother Zuko, Cultural Differences, Gen, Mentions of a Rape Culture, Mild Angst, Mild Fluff, Motherly Katara, NO rape, No Sexual Content, Oblivious Zuko, Omega Zuko, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, POV Zuko (Avatar), Post-Day of Black Sun, Pre-Zukka, Sexism, Sokka is Trying, Stubborn Katara, The Gaang is Trying (badly), The Gaang wants to Love Zuko, Toph Beifong and Zuko are Siblings, Toph's Just Here for the Drama, Water Tribe Dynamics, Zuko Does Not Understand Caring or Concern, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, Zuko says Respect Omega Rights, Zuko's Canonical Daddy Issues, pre-Boiling Rock, protective sokka, the Duke just wants cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25626094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GinnyRose/pseuds/GinnyRose
Summary: Zuko had faced lots of problems before.He had faced his father's ire and his sister's vindictive glee.He had endured his tutors' disappointment and his uncle's sorrow.But none of that had prepared him for the sheer weirdness that was the Avatar's group reacting to him being an omega.Nothing had prepared him for the Duke's constant demands for physical affection or Katara's valiant attempts to murder him with an abundance of food.And absolutely nothing had prepared him for Sokka completely losing his mind over it.Or: Zuko can't figure out why everyone is acting so strangely after his heat.
Relationships: The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar), Zuko & the Duke
Series: Zuko Omegaverse [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1849210
Comments: 35
Kudos: 1264





	Why Are You Staring?

**Author's Note:**

> Quick Note: I added the tag "mentions of rape culture" because the Fire Nation has some less-than-stellar views about omegas that Zuko has somewhat internalized in this story (it's been mentioned briefly before but I felt like it was more evident in this story and deserved a warning). There is no direct mention of rape or sexual assault, nor will there be anywhere in this series, but if any of it is triggering to you at all, please be aware going forward.

Zuko was incredibly confused.

He had known, of course, that things were going to be different once everyone at the temple knew the truth. He knew how people felt about omegas and he knew how people felt about him. There had been reasons the palace healers had insisted he learned to mask his scent even though he never had to do it at the palace, there had been reasons his father had forced him onto suppressants and reasons he had continued to take them. There had been reasons his uncle had encouraged him to practice constant mask scenting on the ship and reasons Zuko had kept it up all through his travels through the Earth Kingdom and in Ba Sing Se and had only loosened his grip of it when he had to, like when he had finally found that woman who explained and sold his herbs to him. There had been reasons he had kept it up in the palace upon his return, although most there still knew the truth.

He had _expected_ the Avatar’s group to act weird. He had expected disparagements and condescending words. He had expected them to debate, once more, rather Zuko was suited to teaching the Avatar firebending – not because he was untrustworthy but because, as an omega, they probably would think him a lesser firebender. He had even braced himself for harsher words, like the ones his father and his advisors would sometimes casually say, about how Zuko was acting disgracefully by putting himself in the presence of unmated betas and alphas without someone to watch over them.

There had, after all, been a reason his father had agreed to let Uncle go so easily with Zuko, although Uncle had been kind enough not to say it outright and Zuko had been too embarrassed to bring it up. Even dishonored and banished, Zuko couldn’t be allowed even the slightest chance to shame his father anymore and, even if the majority of the Fire Nation was in the dark about Zuko’s orientation, enough of the palace administrators and advisors knew the truth to make sending Zuko completely alone inadvisable.

Uncle would have said he was just protecting Zuko and guiding him on his mission to hunt the Avatar, but they both knew that having an alpha family member with him would have kept smoldering whispers back at the palace from turning into wildfires, as well as helped keep any wandering hands at bay if Zuko’s orientation would come to the light.

Zuko didn’t even know what his uncle would say about this situation, a lone omega amidst a group of former enemies. He hadn’t stopped Zuko from leaving alone in the Earth Kingdom but there was a stark difference between being alone, fully capable of defending himself from anything and everyone, and being willingly in the proximity of a group of near strangers. Uncle had wanted to help the Avatar, though, so Zuko was sure the only part his uncle would look poorly on was how terribly late Zuko had been on the uptake.

Besides, Zuko had betrayed his uncle more by siding with Azula more than he ever could by being at this temple. This was a minor thing to beg forgiveness for, in the grand scheme of all the ways he had messed up.

That wasn’t a concern for this moment, though. He would beg Uncle for forgiveness and hope beyond hope he would accept it when the time came.

For now, the group’s strange behavior was a much larger threat.

Zuko hadn’t thought they would hurt him; at least, not in the ways his omega-specific tutor – his least favorite of all the horrible tutors he’d been given – had drilled him to be wary of. They were all children, younger even than him – Toph hadn’t even presented yet and Aang was hardly much older. He would have never actually agreed to letting Toph into his room if he thought any of them a threat like that; and he definitely wouldn’t have just allowed the Avatar to stand outside his door, no matter how much pain was roiling through his body.

No, Zuko had been relatively confident that he wasn’t in any more physical danger during his heat in the abandoned temple than he would have been if he had been forced to undergo a true heat at the palace, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be subjected to the same type of talk that had harried his footsteps since he had first presented. Especially because, no matter how presumptive the Fire Nation could be about his orientation, he knew firsthand that the Earth Kingdom was even worse and, at least if his tutors could be trusted, the Water Tribes were hardly any better. Zuko hadn’t had much experience with the Northern Tribe during the siege – too busy hunting for the Avatar to actually engage in much of the fighting – but he knew there were no omegas or women on any of the boats that commanded the Southern Fleet.

He had expected doubts about his capabilities, comments on his perceived modesty even.

He had been prepared for them.

But he hadn’t been prepared for the weirdness he got instead.

Toph, Zuko understood at least a little bit. She had been taught – rather presumptively in Zuko’s opinion since it was ridiculous to try and assume a child’s orientation before they presented, not even his father had done that – what to do during a heat and she was stubborn enough to do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted. Why she wanted to help _him_ , was a little harder to figure out but so was half of the other things the small earthbender did. And out of all of them, she was the one who treated him pretty much the same, even during his heat. She cracked firebending jokes and prodded his temper with her acerbic tongue even as she handed him wet cloths to set on his forehead – she had tried only once to put it on herself but after nearly drowning Zuko after she accidentally put it over his nose and mouth instead of his forehead, they had both agreed the blind girl shouldn’t be in charge of that.

She had been just as rough as ever whenever she felt Zuko wasn’t falling her exact instructions – a jab to the shoulder when he refused to eat more of the food she had bullied Katara into providing, a stomp of her foot to raise the Earth underneath him and uproot his footing whenever he tried to stand without her express permission. Her strikes were perhaps a tad bit gentler than they would have been had Zuko not been in pain, but she didn’t treat him like some delicate porcelain doll. Zuko probably wouldn’t have let her stay if she had, although whether or not he could actually force the small terror out of his room was debatable at best.

She made comments about him being an omega, of course. Jokes about how “delicate” he was and gleeful cries about how Aang was going to dishonor Zuko if he got too close to his room while delivering things were some of her favorites. Zuko didn’t necessarily _appreciate_ the comments – the ones about dishonoring him really did hit a little _too_ closely – but he knew that she wasn’t mocking _him_ when she said them. She was mocking all the views she had been raised with, mocking all the expectations and limitations her parents had tried to force upon her. Zuko could understand that urge – he wouldn’t have been at the temple with the Avatar’s group if he weren’t completely on board with mocking everything his father had set upon his shoulders.

And also, she just wouldn’t be herself without making rude remarks about the people around her. Zuko was grateful that she at least hadn’t changed his nickname to reference his orientation. He was also grateful that, in the days that had passed since his heat had ended, Toph had more or less returned to her normal self. Her jokes were a little more omega-heavy – she had noticed, just as much as he did, how incredibly uncomfortable the comments made Haru and Teo and had taken a perverse sort of pleasure in making the two Earth Kingdom boys blush – but there was no harm in them, and she treated Zuko practically the same as before. Zuko had never expected the small girl to be such a help to him but her committed steadiness was truly a blessing in disguise amidst the bizarre reactions of almost everyone else.

Aang, too, hadn’t been acting too differently. Or, at least not as differently as Zuko had expected, considering the way he acted throughout Zuko’s heat. For a child who didn’t seem to understand personal space all too much, Aang had been strangely stringent about not going into Zuko’s room. Zuko had expected him to run in whenever he felt like it, once Toph had opened the door to receive whatever supplies she had ordered him to get, but Aang never did. He always, without fail, stopped right before the door and either placed whatever he was holding – generally food, as although Katara never came back to his room after the first time she continued sending far too much food for him and Toph every mealtime – right in the doorway or into Toph’s waiting hands if the girl was close enough. He never once even _asked_ if he could come in and he always averted his eyes.

Most of the knowledge about the Air Nomads was lost when Fire Lord Sozin carried out his brutal attack, Zuko knew, and that included almost everything about how they thought about the different orientations. Judging from how Aang was treating Zuko’s heat – as though it was something he couldn’t bear to be around, something about as fun as an infectious disease – they probably didn’t have too favorable of a view. Zuko had assumed that, much like how his tutor had taught him that omegas were more naturally drawn to baser instincts than either betas or alphas, the Air Nomads had perhaps believed that omegas were more tied to the physical rather than the spiritual world.

He knew, mainly from teachings from his uncle as none of his tutors had ever bothered to know much about the lost nation and from how Aang himself acted constantly, that the Air Nomads revered those capable of dropping worldly ties in exchange of spirituality and freedom and he could see how, as the orientation most associated with one of the fundamental worldly concerns, omegas could have been viewed as naturally less disciplined. It wouldn’t have been terribly hard for the Air Nomads to view heats as direct proof of that. Zuko didn’t like it very much, but it would have been no worse than any of the current nation’s views on omegas, and it neatly explained Aang’s reticence to come anywhere near Zuko during his heat.

The first day after his heat had passed, which had been a slew of absolute awkwardness and embarrassment, seemed to confirm this idea. Aang was still hesitant to come too close to Zuko, putting a wide space between them even as he worried over Zuko’s health nearly as much as Katara did. But, as the days passed and Zuko’s heat completely faded, Aang seemed to return to normal. Personal space became virtually nonexistent again and Aang was all unconcerned smiles and big grins once more. Even during training – where Zuko had expected to have the most difficulties with the Avatar’s apparent views on his orientation – Aang acted exactly as Zuko had seen him act towards Katara or Toph during training, eager to learn now that he no longer viewed fire as a purely destructive element but reluctant to put in as much effort as Zuko knew was necessary. He still fully respected Zuko as his teacher and hardly went against Zuko’s lessons unless it cut too far into his “fun time.” It was odd, but perhaps Air Nomads only took issue with the actual heat cycle and not the omega orientation itself. Zuko could work with that. He had certainly dealt with worse.

The others though. Zuko didn’t know what to do with them.

The two Earth Kingdom boys had always been hesitant around him. Zuko knew that they, like many Earth Kingdom natives, had been hurt by the Fire Nation so he hadn’t blamed them for their caution. But now their hesitation didn’t seem to be caused by fear. Rather, they seemed awkward and unsure about how to handle an omega like Zuko. Or perhaps they, as betas, had never spent much time around omegas at all. They had been incredibly embarrassed to be around him immediately after his return from his self-exile, blushing and averting his eyes as though he had done something shameful. Zuko had more or less expected that; what he hadn’t expected was what followed that embarrassment.

The one in the chair, Teo, was more normal than the one with the facial hair but he was still quite strange. For one, the boy had always liked to tell tales – primarily about what it had been like to live in an abandoned temple and also his and his father’s adventures following their first fight with the Fire Nation – but now, whenever Zuko walked in or sat near the fire to hear the tale he always cut himself off. Zuko couldn’t imagine why – it wasn’t like he wasn’t familiar with warfare in general and his very presence at the temple made it obvious that he didn’t mind opposition to the Fire Nation. And it wasn’t like Teo had been afraid to share the stories around Zuko _before_. But Teo always stopped mid-story and switched to general, bland tales that entertained absolutely no one.

He also avoided being too close to Zuko, as though he was contagious. Before his heat, Teo hadn’t made a habit of wheeling himself too close to Zuko, but he hadn’t shied away from him either and he’d had no problems passing Zuko something or sitting just a tad too close for Zuko’s – admittedly conservative- comfort at the fire. Now though, it was like everything Zuko touched or sat by was suddenly taboo and anytime Zuko had to take something from the beta boy, Teo averted his eyes with a fine blush on his face and placed it next to him rather than into his hands.

Haru was even worse. Not only did he avoid handing things to Zuko or being close enough that they might accidentally touch just like Teo, he also almost constantly wore the strangest expression around Zuko. It showed up at the oddest times – when he and Aang returned from firebending practice or sparring, when Zuko tried to volunteer for any chore that involved going off on his own like hunting, which he had no problem getting assigned before but now never got for unknown reasons, and when Aang was in one of his constant overfriendly moods and decided to throw an arm over his shoulders or nudge him playfully with a bony elbow. The last might have had something to do with the boy’s sudden aversion to touching Zuko but both Toph and the Duke were seemingly exempt from the odd look. But he didn’t think it was that Haru had a problem with him being around Aang, the way Katara did, either. At least, he had never noticed any issue with him being around Aang before his heat.

Zuko had tried once to get Toph to explain what was happening – she was his resident Earth Kingdom omega protocol expert after all – but she had just laughed in his face for so long that he vowed never to ask her about it again. He was almost certain Teo and Haru’s reactions to him had something to do with him being an omega but he couldn’t tell _what_ exactly he was doing that could at all be viewed as improper. He was certainly not doing anything that he wouldn’t have done back in Caldera or on the _Wani_.

The Duke was another oddity. After his first impromptu nap on his lap, the little boy seemed to have decided he and Zuko were somehow in a friendship that consisted of copious attention needing to be spent on the boy and a ridiculous amount of physical affection. Zuko had never spent much time around young children – the closest at the palace had been Azula and her friends but they hadn’t been all that friendly and it wasn’t like children were just hanging around Fire Nation warships – so he wasn’t the best judge of whatever constituted proper child behavior. Even Lee, the little Earth Kingdom boy he had briefly befriended and who was probably the closest to the Duke in personality and behavior, had never acted so physically affectionate.

That was truly the strangest part. Zuko could understand the Duke’s requests to “spar” – only ever with small branches found around the temple because even if the Freedom Fighters had been foolish enough to give a young child an actual weapon, Zuko wasn’t about to be and also the only time he had considered pulling out his dagger to show the Duke Haru, who surprisingly didn’t make that weird face when Zuko was play-sparring with the Duke, had made a grimace severe enough that Zuko never finished unsheathing it. He could even somewhat understand the Duke’s loud cries for Zuko’s attention whenever he was doing something he thought cool – Lee had been similar and Zuko had distant memories of begging for the exact same attention from his cousin Lu Ten before the siege of Ba Sing Se. But the touching was new. And strange.

Physical affection had never been abundant throughout Zuko’s childhood. In the Fire Nation as a whole, physical affection was considered a highly private affair and that was doubly true for the Royal family – even Zuko’s mother, the most affectionate person he had ever met, never touched him more than a hand on his shoulder in public after he turned five. And Zuko had been highly discouraged from entering his mother’s nests once he had reached seven – not that they had always followed that suggestion. His father had never touched Zuko apart from brief shoulder claps or tight-on-the-verge-of-bruising grips in public and pretty much not at all in private once Zuko had left his toddling stage – up until that fateful Agni Kai but Zuko only dwelled on the soft feel of his father’s hand, almost pleasant until the burning began, in his worst nightmares. Even Uncle had saved his most affectionate moments – a gentle hand on Zuko’s forehead, brief embraces, the barely felt whisper of a kiss on Zuko’s cheek when the older man thought him asleep – for when they were completely alone.

It had been socially more acceptable for Azula to touch him, as they were both children of comparable age. But even those memories – of a tiny hand in his own as he helped her navigate her first unofficial public outing, of almost unbearably tight side hugs after a particularly frightening Fire show, of the warmth of her body as she squeezed herself closely against him in the royal palanquin – were distant. Their father had curbed any expression of public affection between the siblings the moment Azula first summoned fire and her desire for them in private faded nearly as quickly. The only touches Zuko associated with his sister now were painful ones.

The Avatar’s group, Zuko knew from observation, was not nearly as conservative with their shows of physical affection. Aang touched everyone constantly and Toph gave frequent – and painful – “love taps” to anyone stupid enough to be within her range when she was feeling affectionate. The Water Tribe siblings were hardly touch-shy either – Katara often placed a gentle hand on someone as she maneuvered her way past them and Sokka flung his arms around people like he was practicing a new way to take down firebenders. The Earth Kingdom boys also often shared brief, friendly touches with most of the group. Zuko had learned to expect brief touches from Toph and Aang – the only two who touched him with any regularity before his heat - but the Duke was something else entirely. Zuko had _never_ been touched by anybody like the Duke touched him.

Perhaps other nations didn’t curb physical affection as early as the Fire Nation did, but the Duke seemed way too old to want to sit in Zuko’s lap. And yet, ever since that first breakfast after his heat, that is exactly what the Duke did. Without fail, every single morning at the fire regardless of if the Duke was already in Teo’s lap – his other favorite place to sit – the small child came over to Zuko and pushed whatever was in his way away befoe wriggling into Zuko’s lap. Zuko had thought it a fluke the first few days – in the beginning, his scent had still been incredibly strong and even as it faded quickly back to non-heat levels it was still stronger than anybody in the group was used to from him and he had thought that the Duke was chasing the smell of fire lilies since he had seemed to like them so much. He had thought the Duke would grow bored of it as it became more common place and stop seeking Zuko’s lap. It wasn’t like Zuko, who was all hard muscle and sharp bones, was a particularly _comfortable_ seat. But the Duke hadn’t given up yet and Zuko had become something of an expert at maneuvering around without disturbing a small, sleeping boy and at getting a truly appalling number of crumbs off his clothing.

But that was just the _morning_ and the Duke didn’t stop just there. It was becoming increasingly more common to feel little fingers brushing against him – the Duke wanted to hold his hand as they foraged for fruits and vegetables in the overgrown gardens or he wanted Zuko’s attention to show him something or he wanted a ride on Zuko’s back because he was “too tired” to walk himself. Zuko didn’t actually believe the last one – the boy certainly had no problem running about any other time – but he always found himself bending down so that the child could clamber onto his back anyway. It was becoming alarmingly common to feel the Duke’s little face burrowed into Zuko’s neck or pressed against the hard plain of his back and the Duke had actually fallen asleep against him more than once.

Zuko knew that he shouldn’t encourage the behavior – not only because he had been taught that desire for physical affection was a weakness by his father and improper in every circumstance the Duke sought it by everyone else, but also because the Duke was a young war-orphan. It wasn’t wise to allow him to become overly attached to Zuko when there was every chance Zuko wasn’t going to live past Sozin’s Comet, when there was every chance he might join the disturbingly long list of people the Duke must have lost. But Zuko couldn’t be cruel to the little boy; so he didn’t push him from his lap, pull his hand away, or refuse to carry him around. Even when everyone stared at him as though expecting him to snap at the little boy at any moment.

Well, everyone except Toph and Aang. Aang, weirdly enough, always looked delighted whenever Zuko gave in to the Duke but Zuko would take that over him looking as though he was going to set the poor boy’s hair on fire just for asking for another ride around the spacious courtyard before dinner. Toph, who couldn’t actually _see_ what Zuko and the Duke looked like together, never missed a chance to mockingly coo at how “sickeningly adorable” the two were which never failed to bring a slight flush across Zuko’s cheeks. Zuko knew better than to ask her to stop though– he wasn’t completely stupid and knew with absolute certainty than she would double down the moment he caved and admitted it bothered him. And in the grand scheme of it all, Zuko preferred the mild mockery to whatever else she would come up with.

Zuko didn’t understand why the Duke was suddenly so attached to him. It had to have something to do with being an omega, but no child in his life had ever reacted to knowing he was an omega like that. Azula had certainly never sought affection from him after his first – and only – heat around her. Zuko still remembered the way she had wrinkled her little nose at him after he’d emerged from his bedroom, remembered the flush of shame on his cheeks when his little sister, barely ten years old, announced over breakfast, in the perfect imitation of what their father had said to him just moments before, that he smelled like a “common whore.” Neither had, of course, known what the word had meant but she had definitely gotten the tone right.

No, Azula had never reacted to Zuko the way the Duke was. Neither had Ty Lee or Mai, who were some of the few permitted around Zuko after his presentation. Ty Lee had come close but even she had never actually crossed the line and Mai had spent most of their childhood pretending Zuko hardly existed. Lee hadn’t even known Zuko was an omega but somehow, Zuko couldn’t imagine the excitable child taking a nap across his back like an infant wrapped across their mother’s back. But that was one of the Duke’s favorite pastimes.

It was decidedly one of the oddest reactions Zuko had ever gotten, but he couldn’t say that he minded it all that much. It was awkward and embarrassing, but there was something pleasant about being around the Duke too. Something pleasant about being trusted so implicitly, something pleasant about being wanted.

And, no matter how strange Zuko felt the Duke was being, his behavior didn’t hold the wisp of a flame to the Water Tribe siblings’.

Zuko had a healthy fear of Katara. She was a waterbending prodigy, rivaling even Azula with how quickly she had mastered her element. Like Azula, she was a fierce warrior and a terrifying adversary. And, much like Zuko’s own sister, she hated him and wanted nothing more than for him to disappear out of her life permanently. Zuko couldn’t deny that her reaction to him joining was fair; he had been given a chance to join them in the caverns of Ba Sing Se and he had squandered it and nearly gotten the Avatar killed. Not to mention all the things he had done to their group even before that. Zuko didn’t care for the dark warning looks in her eyes every time he was around her, didn’t care for the glares or the scoffs or the mistrustful gaze that followed him whenever they were in the same room, but he understood them. They were far more familiar than most of the other reactions from the group and Zuko could deal with them just fine.

But something had shifted during Zuko’s heat and everything about him and Katara had fallen off-kilter. Zuko had heard a decent part of her and Aang and Toph’s argument in front of his door and even through his fever-hazy mind, he had gleamed some important information. He knew Katara had taken issue with him being an omega, he knew she thought omegas weak. It was discouraging, but not surprising and had at least confirmed where the Water Tribes stood on the issue of omegas. Zuko had expected even darker looks and judgment-filled glares when he left his room, had expected her to be the first to raise the issue of Zuko being too inferior to teach the Avatar.

That was not at all what he’d gotten.

Instead of harsh words and harsher glares greeting him the moment he stepped into the courtyard, he’d received shocked looks. Zuko had expected Katara or Aang to tell everyone else what was going on and hadn’t bothered trying to mask his still too strong scent. Before he could even address those, Katara had approached him and that was when the situation had gotten even more out of hand. Rather than demanding an explanation or criticizing him for continuously lying to them, she had forced him to sit and plied him with food before fretting over his warmth and the pallor of his skin. Zuko probably would have been more shocked at the time, but then Sokka had begun demanding explanations and the Duke had crawled into his lap and Katara’s actions had been lost in the general chaos that followed.

Zuko probably wouldn’t have thought much of it – Katara was just as much of a skilled healer as she was a fighter, she probably thought it her responsibility to make sure the Avatar’s firebending teacher wasn’t incapable of doing his job. It didn’t mean she liked Zuko anymore than she had before – plenty of the palace healers had taken care of Zuko without any actual affection for him. He had thought the odd behavior would fade away with the last of the aftereffects from his heat.

But Katara continued behaving oddly. She no longer allowed him to skip meals, no matter how late he appeared or even if he showed up to the campfire at all – Zuko had tested it once, two days after his heat had ended, by trying to stay in the small courtyard he had commandeered for his private practice through lunch and had been shocked when the waterbending girl had appeared, sour-faced and thin-lipped, with a large bowl of stew in her hands. She also kept giving him more than anybody else – an extra piece of flaky fish, an extra scoop of rice, a full moonpeach instead of half and she shot him glares until he’d finished all of it.

Zuko had even heard her once or twice muttering under her breath about how he was “too thin,” which made absolutely zero sense. Sure, Zuko hadn’t yet gotten back to the build he’d had before the siege against the Northern Water Tribe, but he’d had a more or less steady flow of meals since he and his uncle had first found work in Ba Sing Se and no longer looked like a half-starved refugee. He had tried to refuse the extra food – he was getting plenty of food as it was and it wasn’t like they had a crazy abundance of it in the first place – but the glare he had received after trying to slip Momo his extra portion of fruit – no one else would dare accept it - had been severe enough that he dared not test it again. Zuko was prepared to die at any moment but not even he thought dying over food he didn’t want to eat was worth it.

To make matters even stranger, Katara’s frankly odd behavior didn’t stop with the overabundance of food. She also seemed even more invested in what Zuko was doing than she ever had before. Zuko was used to the mistrustful glances and the occasional rude words but Katara had taken it all to the next level. It had started, much like all the other weird behavior, the day after his heat. Once breakfast had ended – in a completely awkward and tense silence after Sokka had finally sat down – she had asked Zuko to stay behind and shooed everyone away except the Duke who had still been snoring happily away in his lap.

Zuko had thought the lecture was coming then; she had been considerate enough towards the Earth Kingdom boys’ tangible embarrassment and had enough awareness to know that neither Aang nor Toph would appreciate her threatening him very much to send everyone away before beginning. Zuko had tensed as she came close to him, arms crossed and a scowl on her face. He had been prepared for the yelling but had been completely flabbergasted when the girl had asked him about his herbs.

Zuko remembered all too well how her face had soured even more when he had asked her why she wanted to know. Remembered how angry she had sounded that he didn’t just automatically understand that she wanted to know how she could get them for him and how often he needed them. Remembered that she had looked momentarily surprised when he had explained what they were for – which of course opened up a whole lot of questions regarding Water Tribe sexual education that he was _definitely never going to ask._ He remembered how odd her face had gone when Zuko had added, very matter-of-factly, that they weren’t a concern because he wasn’t due to need them again until after Sozin’s Comet by which time he would either be dead because they lost or no longer a fugitive because they won. If he hadn’t known her better, he would have thought she looked worried for him but the very idea of _Katara_ being concerned whether Zuko lived or died was laughable at best and the expression had been gone far too quickly for him to interpret what it actually meant.

Still, after that conversation Zuko had felt her eyes on him with even more frequency than before and he saw her wear that same strange expression multiple times whenever he did something that somehow set her off. She had worn it when he had slipped too close to the edge of the temple while playing with the Duke even though Zuko had easily caught himself before dropping too far and had pulled himself back up onto the courtyard before anyone had even fully registered that he’d fallen. She wore it when Zuko volunteered to go hunting while Sokka was off practicing his sword work and Haru, Toph, and Aang were practicing their earthbending, even though he had already proved he could bring back meat on his own just fine. She wore it whenever Toph punched Zuko’s shoulder. It never lasted long enough for Zuko to actually place what it was and it was almost always followed by her looking away with a scowl.

Zuko didn’t know what it could possibly be, but he was obviously doing _something_ to upset her. He just wished she would finally snap and start yelling at him so he could know what he was doing wrong rather than living in this strange limbo, constantly walking on eggshells around her. It was almost like he was little again and Azula had cornered him into playing War with her – he knew the blow was coming but he didn’t know _when_.

Still, he would take Katara’s bewildering looks and the near constant shoving of food into his face over whatever was going on with her brother.

Sokka had easily had the worst reaction to Zuko’s orientation. He had thought Zuko sick at first – how the Avatar’s group had managed to evade him so long when their supposedly best strategist was that oblivious would have been insulting if Zuko hadn’t committed himself wholeheartedly to trying to be good – and then he had looked positively horrified when Toph finally revealed the truth. Zuko had felt shame about his orientation before – the worst had been after Azula had presented and his father had ordered a celebratory feast that Zuko had been forced to attend – but there was something somehow more humiliating in the look on the Water Tribe boy’s face than in being in a room full of people throwing him pitying looks in between congratulating his little sister for something she had no control over.

The other boy had said it was fine when Zuko offered to mask his scent again but he had sat down stiffly and was obviously uncomfortable the entire meal, shooting incredulous looks at Zuko and the Duke in his lap before looking quickly away every time he noticed Zuko watching him. Zuko had hoped Sokka’s weird behavior would fade somewhat as his scent returned to a more normal level – that had been the part that had apparently bothered him the most, after all – but as the days passed, the odd behavior only seemed to grow.

For one, as the person most obsessed with food, Zuko had expected the boy to protest wholeheartedly with the extra portions Katara kept insisting on, but he never did. In fact, he seemed to be actively encouraging it and always looked positively delighted every time Zuko ate the food without a fuss. He had even developed the habit of bringing snacks to Zuko in between meals. It was always in a decidedly offhanded way – he had grabbed a little too much blubbered seal jerky and hadn’t known what to do with the extra until he had “just come across” Aang and Zuko practicing and since Aang wouldn’t eat any of it, would Zuko care for a piece or two?

Or Momo and Appa were fighting over some cantaloupe so Sokka had to take it away and it wasn’t like he could eat the whole thing himself so would Zuko pretty-please do him a favor and take some?

Or – and this one had admittedly been the oddest because Zuko was pretty sure he had _seen_ Sokka getting into Katara’s small store of spices just minutes before it occurred _and_ the supposed culprit was blind and couldn’t read– Toph had been mad at him and thought it would be funny to drop a bunch of super spicy pepper flakes on his mango and now he couldn’t eat it but it would probably be perfect for Zuko’s jerkbender taste buds.

Zuko didn’t even know what “jerkbender taste buds” _were_. But Sokka had always finished each elaborate story by pushing whatever food he had into Zuko’s hands and rushing off. And it wasn’t like Zuko could just waste the food – he had spent too much time starving and watching his uncle and fellow refugees starve to just not let the food be eaten and every time he found himself with extra food, none of the others were around or it was something they wouldn’t eat. So he always ate it.

Zuko was half-convinced it was some sort of Water Tribe plot but, try as he might, he couldn’t think of a single way giving someone food could be a bad thing. It wasn’t like when Azula would offer him some food only for it to turn out to be something disgusting or horrifying – he still vividly remembered the time she had offered him some roasted meat and conveniently left off the fact that it was turtleduck until it was already in his mouth and how much she had laughed when he spat it all over the ground – because none of it, in any way that he could tell, was at all tampered with. Even the mango, which had supposedly been vindictively spiced by Toph – who conveniently didn’t deny it even though Zuko _knew_ her seismic sense didn’t allow her to tell the difference between _spices_ – had been perfectly and uncannily seasoned to Zuko’s taste.

Zuko would have thought it a gesture of concern, except he had no idea why the Water Tribe boy would have been concerned for him. It would have been one thing, perhaps, if Sokka had been bringing him food during his heat like Aang had, but Zuko wasn’t stuck in a room with only Toph and a fever for company and he was quite capable of getting his own foods. Sure, he didn’t really snack – three meals a day was plenty for him especially since his appetite had never quite reached the size it had been pre-three weeks of starvation on a raft in the middle of the ocean – but he could grab food if he ever needed to. He definitely didn’t need Sokka getting him anything.

Sokka didn’t stop with the food though. Like his sister and Haru, he stared. And just like with them and their weird looks, Zuko had no chance of interpreting what any of it meant. It didn’t help that Sokka didn’t have one strange look, he had an entire closet of them. When giving Zuko food, he tried for something akin to casual but there was always some strange glint in his eye. When Zuko was carrying the Duke on his back or when he allowed the little boy to curl up against him, Sokka looked – soft, almost? Relaxed? Zuko couldn’t quite describe the expression except that it reminded him of how Uncle had looked after sitting down in their tiny apartment with a cup of steaming ginseng after a long day at the tea shop.

Whenever Toph hit him or made some omega joke at his expense, Sokka always had a tight, tense expression like he disapproved but didn’t want to make a scene. That one was especially odd because, from everything Zuko had observed both as the boy’s enemy and as a sort-of-reluctant-ally, Sokka was often the one making the jokes and he had never before spared Zuko from them. One of the first times Zuko had ever actually stayed at the campfire after dinner – at the behest of Toph who may or may not have actually trapped his feet into the Earth to keep him seated – Sokka had given a spirited rendition of Zuko’s appearance when they had first met, “stupid” ponytail and all.

Weirdest of all by far was the look the other boy wore whenever he came across Zuko and Aang practicing. Specifically, whenever Zuko was demonstrating a particularly tricky but brutally effective maneuver. The expression was sad, somehow, but also angry? He had thought perhaps it was just Sokka being forced to remember all the times Zuko had attacked them using those exact same moves, but he had never made the expression before knowing Zuko’s orientation and he had regaled the group with some of the things Zuko had done in the past – always the ones that had ended up with Zuko in a humiliating situation like when they had left Zuko’s boat encapsulated in an avalanche after Aang’s first escape or when Zuko’s ship had been stolen by pirates – without ever making that face before. But the alternative – that something about Zuko being an omega made Sokka sad or upset - made even less sense.

And then there had been Sokka’s reaction to Zuko offering to spar with him. Zuko had thought it was a reasonable suggestion – everyone else who planned to fight in close combat had Aang to pit their battle skills against but no one but him and Sokka had any training with weapons and there was only so much preparation one could do by themselves. Zuko had thought Sokka, no matter how hesitant he was around him, would jump at the chance of having someone to swordfight with. But when he brought it up to the other boy, two days after his heat had ended, Sokka had looked plainly horrified at the very suggestion. Zuko didn’t think he’d ever seen the other boy look so absolutely appalled and he had once _ripped_ his grandmother from his little sister’s arms and threatened to _burn down_ his village.

Sokka had floundered out some excuse on why he couldn’t do that but Zuko had hardly heard the words. That reaction, alone of all the others, Zuko did actually understand. Sokka simply did not think Zuko was worth training with.

It had certainly not been the first time Zuko had been looked down upon so severely. Before Azula’s presentation, their respective firebending tutors had set them against each other on occasion in “friendly” spars meant to try and bring Zuko up to his sister’s level but the moment Azula had presented as an alpha, Zuko’s own omega-tutor had thrown a big enough fit that they ceased immediately. It had been apparent to everyone then, that Zuko was just not meant to be as good as Azula and it wouldn’t help either of their training to act as though he could ever reach her level. An omega, even the strongest one, could not hope to compete with the strongest alpha, his tutor had passionately declared in front of both the firebending masters and Azula, and Zuko was far from being the strongest _anything_.

No matter how much he had protested that he wanted to continue sparring against his sister – the pain of the small burns he always walked away with was nothing compared to the fear of disappointing his father by being too weak to handle the defeats gracefully – nobody had ever given in. It had been like trying to beat back the tide with a single flame.

Zuko hadn’t even bothered to fight against Sokka’s rejection. It didn’t seem to matter to the other boy that Zuko had soundly beat him several times before and Zuko had enough on his plate teaching Aang firebending. If the boy didn’t want to train with Zuko because of some misplaced alpha pride, that was ultimately Sokka’s concern, not his own.

Not that that made the humiliation sting any less.

Sokka didn’t just deny Zuko training or make odd faces whenever Zuko trained with Aang, however. He also went out of his way to prevent Zuko from other important duties as well. Sokka was one of the staunchest opposers of Zuko hunting – sure, the other boy coached it in half-hearted excuses about how since he was one of the few _not_ teaching the Avatar important elemental magic it should be his duty to hunt, but Zuko could see right through it. Especially since he seemed to have zero problems with Toph deciding to join in whenever she felt like it.

Even more troubling was the fact that Zuko seemed to always be conveniently skipped over for guard duty. He had never been allowed to stand guard on his own, of course – the group rightfully didn’t trust him nearly enough for that and even if most of them did, Katara would have never allowed it – but now he wasn’t even asked to tag along for rounds with anyone else. Zuko would have expected the change to be Katara’s doing if he hadn’t known for a fact that Sokka was the one in charge of assigning guard duty. The other boy hadn’t even tried to make the blatant dismissal not obvious – sure he had nominally decided to change from a rolling schedule involving everyone to a random draw due to unspecified complaints, but he had conveniently never drawn Zuko’s name and somehow the completely-by-chance lotto still followed the old pattern with no one’s name being picked twice in a row.

It was insulting, plain and simple. Zuko hadn’t kicked the Water Tribe boy’s ass all the way from the South to the North poles to be looked down upon now just because of his orientation. If he understood just one thing out of all this crazy strangeness, it was Sokka’s blatant disregard of Zuko’s own abilities.

And, confused or not, Zuko wasn’t about to let it slide.

He would prove to the stupid alpha – and the rest of the group – that he was not just some omega they could throw all their weird, confusing, nonsensical behaviors and opinions onto.

And he would do it by following Sokka into whatever harebrained plan he was coming up with, asking questions about war prisoners and Fire Nation prisons.

**Author's Note:**

> A quick note:  
> While writing the section about the Duke (honestly my favorite part to write after Sokka's because big brother Zuko is god-tier content), I decided to look up traditional Chinese baby-wraps to make sure that Zuko comparing the Duke's desire for piggyback rides to infants being carried was accurate and I learned (at least from the sources I read, please tell me if I'm wrong) that a sling around the back was not only a common traditional method of holding a baby, the slings were often red and were sometimes decorated with Mandarin ducks so imagine: parent! Zuko in full Fire Lord regalia carrying his baby on his back with a wrap decorated entirely with turtleducks. 
> 
> Anyways, thank you all for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! I had a lot of fun writing oblivious but self-conscious Zuko thinking everyone hated him but not being able to figure out why! There wasn't a lot happening in this story but it was a lot of fun writing how all the Gaang was reacting to Zuko through his POV! Coming up: the Boiling Rock, ft. Zuko saying screw sexism!


End file.
